Taking Stock
I grew up in a pub opposite an old cinema with a letter board. A Waitrose was built on the land where the rest of the cinema used to be. I only learned this recently when I googled how old the cinema I’d known all my life was. The original art deco cinema had opened in 1938, before either of my parents were born – before internet. Now only screens 5-7 remain, but the cinema’s still there. That view from my window of the Waitrose and the edge of the cinema, beyond my Jemima Puddleduck curtains, was one of the few memories I have of the chapter in which my parents were together, and the first view I remember having. In the pub I would sneak downstairs behind the bar and scoop up the bottle caps discarded in their black plastic trays, Bacardi Breezer caps mostly. (I didn’t know this then). It was the 90s and the bottles were lined up like rainbows behind the glass. I clawed them into my dad’s upturned Mallorca t-shirt like a kangaroo pouch and trundled up the stairs. I sprawled them a
